


consequences

by fluffysfics



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, post-timeless children, the TARDIS wants them to get their shit together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24220252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: The Doctor abandoned her oldest friend on Earth. The Master absorbed a terrifyingly powerful entity without regard for what it might do to him. Both of them remember destroying their home planet.Every action has consequences, and now those consequences are coming to light. Luckily, they’ve got each other.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 85





	consequences

The corridors of the Doctor’s TARDIS were an oddly peaceful place. The Master had become quite familiar with them in the weeks since coming to live on her ship; this body of his was restless, and having the Cyberium in his head (briefly, the Doctor had made removing that her _absolute_ first priority) only seemed to have made that particular trait worse. 

So, whenever the Doctor needed time to herself, which was a pretty frequent occurrence, honestly, he would wander the maze of corridors that made up her ship. 

His own TARDIS had never looked like this. His own TARDIS was loyal, and helpful, and put his rooms in normal places that didn’t require three maps and a working knowledge of transcendental geometry to get to. But there was something oddly comforting about following the soft orange light and metal panelling through the corridors almost endlessly, listening to the quiet hum of the engines and the gentle clank-clank of his footsteps against the floor. 

Even if the Doctor’s TARDIS never liked him enough to give him any interesting rooms besides his own bedroom, he could find a little peace in exploring. Mental peace was something that was in short supply for him, these days, and-

_He stumbles slightly on a loose floor panel, and for the briefest of moments his head is filled with silver, rage and pain and blindingly bright-_

The Master caught himself before he could fall- shook his head, swore under his breath. Fuck. _Fuck_. The world slowly swam back into view, spots and patches dancing around his vision until he blinked them away. 

The...glitches, as he’d been calling them, were getting better. Slowly. Unfortunately, even the Doctor had warned him that she didn’t know how long they’d last. 

He leaned back against the wall of the corridor, rubbing his hands across his face. They only ever lasted a second, but they seemed to drain his energy in an instant. The Doctor wasn’t sure why he was suffering like this, and she wasn’t, considering she’d _also_ had the Cyberium in her head. Her theory was that it was because it had left her voluntarily, and the Master had had it forced out of him. 

He was keeping quiet about his own theory, which was something about _superior biology_ that he was sure would make the Doctor give him those big sad resentful eyes she was so good at this time around. 

“Wouldn’t mind if you could show me to my bedroom now,” the Master murmured into the air. Maybe just a brief rest. The Doctor would no doubt come and find him whenever she was done with...whatever she was doing, and she could wake him up if he was still asleep. 

He peeled himself away from the wall, hopefully pushing open the first door he came across. It was dark inside- he pressed his hand against the wall where the light switch ought to be, and did not find it. Oh. Not his bedroom, then. 

The Master was about to back out of the room when he noticed two things. Firstly, the scattering of softly glowing stars painted onto the ceiling of this room. And secondly, the faint whimpering noise coming from the far side. He frowned, took a step into the room, and promptly tripped over something that sounded like it was made from a lot of fragile metal parts. 

Ah. This was the Doctor’s bedroom, wasn’t it? The Master squinted until his eyes adjusted to the darkness, picking his way past the multitude of _things_ scattered all over the floor (did she _ever_ tidy up?) until he got to the bed. It was large, _too_ large; the figure curled up in the middle of it, fully dressed and on top of the blankets, barely seemed to take up any room at all. 

“Doctor?” His voice was unusually soft. “Theta?”

No response. He sat carefully on the edge of the bed, and closed his eyes, reaching out mentally. The Doctor’s usual walls were lowered. Hmm. Even without straying properly into her mind the Master could see it swirling, filled with the nonsensical darkness of sleep. He lingered for a moment, and debated diving further inside, poking through her head. He could find out anything he wanted, with her guard down like this. Thousands of years of blackmail opportunities, waiting _right there_ -

The sleeping Doctor whimpered again, sounding so small and so utterly heartbroken. The Master pulled away from her mind, shoving those thoughts aside. He couldn’t- he couldn’t do that to her. Not like this. Not right now. 

Right now, she looked like his Theta Sigma, and that was _unfair_. Maybe he was just tired from the glitch, maybe simply being on her TARDIS was infecting him with sentimentality. But whatever it was, he could picture a young boy curled up exactly like she was, hair the same fair shade but considerably wilder, wearing red robes instead of that sky-blue coat she never took off. 

The part of him that was still Koschei Oakdown couldn’t ever leave his Theta to suffer. The Master hated that fact, he’d spent so long trying to purge himself of it, but it remained true. 

He pushed his shoes off, and swung his legs up onto the bed, curling his arms around the Doctor. They’d gotten this close whilst they were awake, once or twice, but this felt different. New, even though it wasn’t. Even though the Master could recall countless nights in their youth that had been spent tangled around each other, holding on as tight as each of them could. 

She didn’t wake up, and the whimpering seemed to have stopped. He hesitated, wondering if he should stay here. If the Doctor would be angry about the violation of privacy if he stayed. How had he even found her room, come to think of it? The TARDIS normally kept it hidden from him. 

Unless she’d wanted him to find it. To find the Doctor. 

She shifted in her sleep, pressing closer back against him. 

It wouldn’t hurt to stay where he was, would it? He’d just been wanting to find his own bedroom, and this was, well... _a_ bedroom. He could rest here. He was already so _tired_... 

——

The Master woke up to a hand shaking his shoulder. He pressed his eyes tighter shut, some vague platitude about _just a little longer_ on his lips. 

“Oi! No. Wake up!” 

His eyes snapped open. Fuck. Right. That’s where he was. 

The Doctor stopped shaking his shoulder. She was leaning over him, hair hanging down and curtaining her face. “There you are. How’d you get in here?” She sat back, and folded her arms, looking...peeved. 

“Don’t know,” he mumbled, stifling a yawn. 

“What d’you mean you don’t know? I told my TARDIS to keep you busy, so you must have- done something to her. What did you do?” 

The Master blinked. He was definitely too half-asleep for an interrogation like this. 

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” he insisted. “I asked for my bedroom, and your ridiculous ship gave me this door instead.” 

“Not possible,” the Doctor insisted.

“I’m telling you, love, that’s what happened.” The Master pushed himself up the bed to rest against the pillows. “What nefarious plan would involve hacking your TARDIS to show me your bedroom, and then coming in and _falling asleep with you_. Check your head, I didn’t touch anything in there.”

The Doctor was quiet for a moment, clearly running through her thoughts. She looked at him, and said nothing, but the sheepish expression on her face was very clear. 

“Well- still doesn’t answer why you decided to share my bed.” 

“I was tired. Had another glitch. And you were having a nightmare, I couldn’t leave.”

The Doctor’s face softened immediately, and in an instant she was rummaging in her pockets for her sonic, pointing the damn thing at his head. 

“It’s been nearly forty-eight hours since the last, um-“

“Glitch,” the Master offered. She didn’t like that name. 

“...That’s an improvement. Longest time you’ve gone without one yet.” She patted him encouragingly on the shoulder, like he was a little kid who’d just broken his personal record in some kind of sport. 

He couldn’t help but feel that she was being somewhat evasive, here. 

“What were you dreaming about, Doctor?”

Her expression faltered, and then reasserted itself with alarming speed as she leapt out of bed. “Come on. Get up! Hey- it’s not so bad that we both had a nap at the same time, ‘cause now we can have _breakfast_. I want waffles. Do you want waffles?”

Unimpressed, the Master stayed put. Completely still, apart from the fingertip tapping rapidly against his knee. The Doctor stopped, and her shoulders slumped. 

“I don’t want- you shouldn’t ask me to talk about things like this. You’re not going to like the answer.”

Still, he was quiet, dark eyes fixed onto hers. She squirmed, and he almost felt bad for making her uncomfortable. Almost. 

“Gallifrey,” she admitted softly, avoiding his gaze. 

The Master abruptly stopped tapping. He could feel it lingering at the edge of his mind, a tidal wave of hot anger that rushed over him every time he thought too hard about that planet. And there, too, was _silver_ , the unpleasant afterimage of it that threatened to overwhelm him if he let it. 

“Oh,” he said, a wholly unimpressive syllable to deal with a revelation like that. 

“Not anything you did.” The Doctor was standing like a contrite child in the middle of the room, shoulders hunched and eyes downcast. “What _I_ did. Or what I thought I did.”

“The Moment,” he said. She nodded, crossing her arms across her chest and looking like she wanted to disappear into the floor. 

The Master looked her up and down, and wondered when he’d stopped taking pleasure in seeing her squirm like this. There was no longer anything gleeful about it; it just _hurt_. It hurt more than it had since they were children, and he felt something strangely protective rising up in his-

_Silver, he wants to kill, wants to burn, destroy, make things right through fire and ash and death-_

He gasped, pressing his palms against his eyes. A shudder ran through him, the sickening aftershock of an unexpectedly _violent_ vision. The Doctor was on him in an instant, sonic out again, and the Master growled and swatted it out of her hand. 

“Don’t use that thing on me,” he snapped. “I’m _fine_. We were talking about _you_.” Everything suddenly felt too hot, and he wasn’t sure if it was adrenaline or embarrassment. This was such a stupid, _stupid_ problem to be dealing with. He was the _Master_ , he’d put up with drums in his head for _centuries_ , this shouldn’t be bothering him as much as it was. 

The Doctor pressed cool hands against his cheeks, looking down at him with eyes full of concern. 

“That wasn’t very long after the last one. Are they getting worse again? Longer? More intense? Anything?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” the Master said through gritted teeth. “Gallifrey is- not something I usually talk about.” He met the Doctor’s gaze- and immediately looked away again. Her eyes were full of soft worry, softer than he’d seen her direct at anyone, or anything, else in this body of hers. 

“I don’t much want to talk about it either,” she said, “so that’s fine by me.”

“No, no, no- come on. You had a nightmare. Talk about it. Let me help.” He opened his mouth to add ‘give me something to do’, and thought better of it. That sounded desperate. Maybe he was a little desperate. The Doctor had taken him in, put up with his rage and misery, removed the Cyberium for him. He’d done...exactly _nothing_ in return, and it was killing him. Learning who she was, what she was, had made him feel useless enough; he didn’t need that feeling exacerbated by his inability to hear the name of his own planet without feeling sick. 

“There’s really not much to talk about, Master. I dreamed that I destroyed Gallifrey. Happens maybe one in three times I close my eyes. One in four if I’m feeling happy that month. Rest of the dreams are usually worse, so really it’s not _that_ bad-“

“What’s worse than destroying Gallifrey?”

She stared down at him, and the Master watched the concern fade from her eyes, to be replaced by- fear? Oh. That was new. 

“Sometimes I dream about you,” the Doctor said quietly. “What I did to you. Leaving _you_ to- _them_ , on the Eiffel Tower.”

The Master said nothing, because he didn’t trust himself to. 

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor continued. “I know that doesn’t make it better, but I’m sorry for that. I regret it. Really, I do. I won’t ask you to forgive me. I don’t deserve that.” 

She was torturing herself over this, the Master could see it in her eyes. “I survived,” he said simply, not making any mention of the prison cells and daring escapes and seventy seven years of abuse and heartbreak and desperate measures he’d taken in order to do so. Survival was enough. “I survived. And I did literally kill you once, Doctor. Oh, and there was the time I kept you as a pet for a year. Perhaps this makes us even.” 

She made a small, strangled sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, shaking her head. 

“I think I still owe you, Koschei.”

“...Maybe.” The Master glanced up at the fake stars glowing on the ceiling, and remembered childhood; two boys curled up in a field under the night sky, promising to visit _everything_ together. “I think you’re on your way to making it up to me.” He shrugged, gaze flicking back to the Doctor. She looked so _sad_. 

“I’m not a good person,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. It shook as she spoke, and she pressed herself close when the words were out, half-collapsing against him like she didn’t have a choice in the matter. 

The Master closed his eyes, and held back at _least_ the first seven reactions that came to mind. He opened his mouth to speak, but the Doctor beat him to it. 

“I’m so _tired_ of everything,” she murmured into the side of his neck, her voice thin and full of pain in a way that made his hearts _ache_. “I don’t even know what I did with most of my lives. How many people I killed, or hurt- what I did for Gallifrey. I could have been terrible. And look at me- I’m not much better now, am I?”

He suppressed a shiver, forced back that horrible squirming silver feeling that had risen like bile in the back of his mind at the mention of Gallifrey. Of the Doctor’s distant past. 

“ _Why_ do you go straight to the possibility that you did awful things? You were still _you_.”

“The Division probably didn’t have me handing out sweets to children,” the Doctor mumbled. “And _I_ do terrible things.”

“Fine. You do.” The Master wasn’t going to argue with that. They both did horrible, awful, genocidal things. “You do terrible things. You also save whole planets, and waste all your time showing your favourite little species pretty things around the universe. Whatever they made you forget, I’m sure it wasn’t all murder.” 

The Doctor said nothing. Her arms wrapped tighter around him, and the Master drew in a breath. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out and curled his arms around her in return. 

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor murmured, after a long, lingering silence that wasn’t _entirely_ uncomfortable, but the Master could hardly say that it was contented, either. Like most things with them these days, it hovered in an awkward in-between state. 

“You don’t need to apologise. Or maybe you do, but if that’s the case, then I do, too. And I’m not going to.” He still couldn’t force the humility to sound _natural_ , because it _wasn’t_. So he wasn’t going to try, for now. 

“I missed you, Koschei,” was the next thing she said. The Master froze, dead silent and stunned for several seconds. Fuck. It was such a short, simple sentence, and yet it had ploughed into him like a freight train. The Doctor had been trying so hard for these last few weeks to help him get over the insecurities he’d been plagued with, the crippling certainty that he was so much less than her. That one sentence felt like it had done more to help than anything else she’d tried so far. 

“I-“ His mouth went dry; he licked his lips, swallowed, tried again. “Fuck, I missed you too.” He’d been missing her since the day she’d run away from Gallifrey. Since that first confrontation they’d ever had as enemies. Since every time they’d met each other after that. 

“This time, we’re going to get it right,” the Doctor said. Her face was still buried in the side of his neck. “I’m going to look after you until every last trace of the Cyberium is gone. And then we’re going to see every star together.” She lifted her head, and the Master was struck by how much _softer_ than usual she looked. 

“That’s very idealistic of you,” he pointed out. 

She pouted at him. 

“...Fine,” he said. “We’re going to see the stars.” Just like they’d said they would when they were kids. The Master’s gaze lingered on her face for a few moments more, and he bit his lip. “I’m going to stay with you,” he promised quietly. “Until you can sleep without nightmares and saving the universe doesn’t make you feel _tired_.” 

The Doctor let out a shaky breath. “You mean that?”

“I promise,” the Master said. For once in his life, it was a promise that he desperately didn’t want to break. Maybe he would, in the end. He couldn’t be sure. But he could certainly _try_. 

“I promise, too. But- before we get to- I don’t know, _fixing us_ , I think we need to stay here for a while first.” She leaned up, and pressed her lips softly, so softly, against his. The Master didn’t pull away, didn’t try and get more. He closed his eyes, and he kissed her. 

Thoughts of the future made his head spin, right now. The web of messy, bloody actions they’d both taken against each other since regenerating into these bodies was still tangled tight around them, and the Master didn’t doubt that there would be consequences for each and every reckless decision, thoughtless word, ruthless action. 

But the thought of consequences didn’t scare him quite so much now. He was confident, for the first time in a very long time, that they both wanted this to work. Even in the Vault, he hadn’t been this confident- that had always been so grotesquely _one-sided_. 

They were both here, now, together. Both just as much of a mess as each other. And yet, both equally willing to work through it all. And he really thought that they could. 

For the first time in countless long years, the Master had _hope_. And that was really all that mattered, wasn’t it?

**Author's Note:**

> ‘hey Fluffy, you should write fluff for once’   
> ‘okay, sure’   
> -three days later, watching this fic emerge- ‘oops’
> 
> hope y’all enjoyed despite the non-fluffiness of most of this, comments and kudos appreciated as always <3


End file.
